Students in our Elective Computer Science Classes are being taught critical thinking skills as they create a Digital Portfolio to develop and support their digital literacy and collaborative learning with interdisciplinary projects. Taking a Beginning or Advanced Computer Class is
a great way to
learn more about how
to use a computer. In
our Computer Lab, in Santa Cruz, California, we have 32 Mac minis with 22" inch flat screen
monitors. Mrs. Rivas uses a Promethean Board and ActivExpressions, (hand-held student response devices), to teach 21st Century skills to her students. Students learn cross-platform skills so that they can work on any
computer! Students have their own personal login and they learn how to utilize a server to send and retrieve their work. All Computer Elective students
have the opportunity to program the computer in order to create their own interactive 3D video game. Beginning Computer students use Alice 2.2, which uses Java-like programming which was developed by Carnegie Mellon University. Advanced Computer students use Alice 3.1 which uses Java programming.

In the Advanced Classes students create some cool interdisciplary projects using desktop publishing skills such as brochures, newsletters, and business letters and they learn how to do interactive programming in Java to create a 3D video game. Additionally, students continue to refine their skills by creating spreadsheets and charts, web pages, animation sequences, and PowerPoint presentations.

The animation sequences that are posted here were created on the Mac with Operating System X using Flash CS5.